Publications

24 Apr 2014
News

Ensuring a business’s profitability enables it to serve society

company is having in India, for example, embodies founder Henry Ford’s mantra that it is “in Ford’s DNA to give back to communities.” Said Fields, “Only a profitable business can be of service to society, both from an economic development standpoint, but also as a... View Details

01 Mar 2025
News

Alumni and Faculty Books

Edited by Margie Kelley Borders and the Self By Chinwe Ajena-Sagna (MBA 2003) Masobe Books “Who are you?” Every border tells a story. Every story has its origins. Tracing a cultural lineage from the beginnings of Igbo history in the ninth century by delineating... View Details

17 Aug 2021
Blog Post

Applying the MBA Skillset to Global Health Challenges: Summer Fellow Vasilis Theodorou (MBA 2022)

diseases in low-and middle-income countries. I am part of CHAI’s Global Malaria Strategy and Financing team, a team that provides direct technical and operational support to countries to strengthen their malaria programs and eradicate the... View Details

March 2020 (Revised June 2023)
Case

Scaling Nextdoor

By: Jeffrey F. Rayport, Thomas O. Jones and Jeff Huizinga

Nextdoor, striving to solidify its position as the leading global social media platform for neighborhoods, works to scale audience, geography, and revenue. View Details

Keywords: Platforms; Information Technology; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Social Media; Digital Platforms

September 2020 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Gong: Resonating Conversational Insights

By: Alison Wood Brooks and Trevor Spelman

In 2015, Amit Bendov was struck by a realization about a new technology that might be able to transcribe musical notation in real-time, which eventually became known as Gong. Gong’s business proposition was simple: provide software that automatically captures,... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Technological Innovation; Communication; Performance Effectiveness; Sales; Customer Satisfaction; Competitive Strategy

May 2021
Supplement

Paul Levy: Confronting a 'Corporate Campaign' (B)

By: James K. Sebenius and Isaac Silberberg

Paul Levy, CEO of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center hospital is faced with a formidable negotiation campaign to unionize staff at BIDMC. Armed only with his personal blog, does Paul stand a chance against the union's multi-million dollar organizing budget? View Details

Keywords: Healthcare; Healthcare Industry; Hospital Management; Unions; Negotiation Campaign; Blog; Health Care and Treatment; Labor; Labor Unions; Labor and Management Relations; Negotiation; Strategy; Social Media; Health Industry; Massachusetts; United States

17 Feb 2015
News

The First Five Years: Diogo Castro Freire (MBA 2012)

first stage of filmmaking, called development, in the fall. That included the synopsis for the film and strategy for the broader communications initiative that will have the film as its platform. It also... View Details

Keywords: Arts, Entertainment; Motion Picture and Sound Recording Industries; Information

20 Sep 2016
First Look

September 20, 2016

to Jewish organizational life. Inspired by 30 years of pioneering work by retail giant Leslie Wexner’s philanthropic focus on Jewish leadership, More Than Managing brings together diverse and remarkable thinkers to address challenges facing View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Mar 2013
First Look

First Look: March 26

business group affiliates and when local institutions develop. Therefore, we shed light on the firm-level implications of minority state ownership, a topic that has received scant attention in the strategy literature. Cornell... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 Apr 2015
Research & Ideas

Digital Initiative Summit: The Business of Crowdsourcing

Gaining the community's trust is vital to building a successful business with crowdsourcing, agreed business leaders at the Digital Initiative Summit at Harvard Business School on March 30. When Tongal got its start in 2009, some members of the View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

Career Coach

Cheryl Rousseau

transitions of all kinds: On-Boarding; Inter-Company Movements; Succession/Planned Exits; Out-Boarding; Job Search; Boards Seats. Cheryl has an MBA in Finance and Strategy (Kellogg ’87) and gained first-hand executive knowledge in a... View Details

Keywords: Consulting; Investment Banking; Financial Services (All); Investment Management; Financial Services (All); Private Equity; Financial Services (All); Health Care; Retail

Web

Business and Climate Change Course | HBS Online

Concepts Understand the science, economic impact, and policy implications of climate change Identify and communicate the risks and opportunities posed by climate change across industries Leverage insights from real-world examples to... View Details

24 Jul 2018
News

How Amy Hood Won Back Wall Street and Helped Reboot Microsoft

At an executive retreat in 2015, Hood lectured senior leaders on the need for more internal and external metrics to keep employees on a measurable path and communicate better to investors. Nadella and Hood hatched a plan to refocus... View Details

06 Jun 2005
Research & Ideas

Microsoft vs. Open Source: Who Will Win?

in a special issue of Management Science. Ultimately, the authors believe, neither side is likely to be forced from the battlefield—Microsoft has too much market share and OSS offers too many benefits for users. But there are strategies... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Technology

02 Jul 2012
Research & Ideas

Why Good Deeds Invite Bad Publicity

really pay off when companies need that goodwill from the public? In a recent working paper, No News Is Good News: CSR Strategy and Newspaper Coverage of Negative Firm Events, Oberholzer-Gee set out to test the insurance hypothesis using... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Energy

28 Oct 2008
First Look

First Look: October 28, 2008

dynamic occurs because an organization's problem-solving routines and normal patterns of communication tend to constrain the space of designs within which it searches for new solutions. Such a link, if confirmed empirically, would be... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

20 Jun 2016
News

Having an Impact on Development and Poverty Issues

the public and private sectors. Before founding these firms, Gandhi was head of the institutional strategy area for Morgan Stanley and then vice chairman of investment banking and global head of the financial institutions business for... View Details

Keywords: Constantine von Hoffman

March 2025
Case

Taylor Guitars: Making Employee Ownership Work the Taylor Way

By: Dennis Campbell, Petros Kusmu and Stacy Straaberg

In 2013, guitar manufacturer Taylor Guitars’ co-founders Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug were considering several exit options including selling to a competitor or to a private equity firm. The co-founders decided, instead, to embark on a seven-year process to transfer 100%... View Details